 In this topic, we are going to look at another dimension of the multinational's reaction to the repatriation process, and that is the dimension of knowledge transfer through the international assignment. Knowledge transfer is one of the primary objectives of international assignments. So one of the major objectives of international assignments is cross fertilization of ideas and practices that assist in developing and maintaining a competitive advantage. So cross fertilization of ideas means that ideas, opinions, attitudes, behaviors, they transfer from one place to the other. They are taken from the home country to the host country, and similarly ideas from the host country are taken back to the home country, which is something which creates a synergistic effect on the learning of the organization, and it leads to building up of the competitive advantage. So learning and knowledge transfer is something which is considered to be at the forefront of the organizational processes in current times. It is not that we want to manage organizations financially or the marketing perspective or the production facilities. That is something which is the basic, but the most important aspect which stands at the forefront of the organization, which leads to the competitive advantage is the organizational learning, and that is something which takes place by cross fertilization of ideas, and that is something which happens in the international assignments to a great extent, which is expected to happen in the international assignments to a great extent. However, in practice, the situation is quite opposite. It is found from the research data that knowledge transfer is usually considered to be a one way process. So people who are sent on the international assignment, they take the knowledge from the home country to the host country, and they make people in the host country learn the practices and the skills and knowledge which they have, and that is something which is transferred in a one way process. And because the organizations, they don't manage the repatriation process very well, the transfer of knowledge back from the host country to the home country remains unattended. It remains something which does not happen and therefore the knowledge transfer process is a, it remains a one way process. However, it is something which is desired and the relocation, the repatriation process of the organization can ensure that international assignees who are sent on international assignments abroad, they come back to the organization and they transfer and share the knowledge that they have learned over the assignment, over the international assignment and make it useful for the organization. As you would remember in the case study of Wayne Blower, that the protocols and systems that he had developed over there, when he came back to the home country, those systems were actually totally bypassed and they were not given any due importance. But he had spent a considerable amount of time and effort on building on those systems. So rather than discarding those systems, discarding those protocols, the organization could have invested on building upon those protocols and systems and using them and making that person feel that importance that he has done something which the organization can use and learn from. So the knowledge transfer process, if it becomes a one way process, the organization would be able to cross-fertilize the ideas and therefore lead to a competitive advantage. What type of knowledge and skills can be transferred either one way or two way? Let's take a look at the types of skills which can be developed in the international assignments. Number one is the market specific knowledge. It is the knowledge about the local systems, the political, social, economic, language, customs of a country of the organization in which the international assignee goes and works in. That is the market specific knowledge and that market specific knowledge can be brought back in the home country and it can be utilized to build upon new knowledge from that. Then another type of skills which are developed in international assignment are the personal skills and in those personal skills is the intercultural knowledge. It is the self-confidence, flexibility and tolerance that a person develops from his exposure in an international assignment. You know that when you are exposed to different circumstances, your experience is widened, your perspective is widened and that leads to flexibility and tolerance and it is something which is desired and sought after by organizations who want to develop a culture of knowledge and culture of learning because these are two basic values, tolerance and flexibility which lead to learning of new ideas because you want people to have that wider perspective which leads to acceptance of new ideas which leads to open-mindedness and therefore leads to learning of the organization. People who come back from international assignments, they have widened perspectives and with a high level of tolerance and flexibility which can be employed to generate and develop a culture of openness and learning in the organization. Then another type of skills is the job-related management skills which are related to getting the task done, getting the job completed and those are communication skills, the project management skills, problem-solving skills and these are also learned on the international assignments. Another type of skills which are built in national assignments with a quite good level of magnitude is network knowledge and because you meet very different type of diverse people, your network is something which is widened and you are able to connect with a wider number of people and you develop greater networks when you go on international assignments and that is something which could be beneficial for the organization again. And then finally, the general management capacity is built in international assignments and what does that mean? It means broader job responsibilities and exposure to other parts of the organization. This exposure is something which also leads you to develop a broader management skill and therefore you are able to manage in a more effective way which means that you are capable of then moving on to a higher level of management positions in which you can apply that broader management knowledge to a wider pool of people and these are the skills which can be built one way or two way. These can be built in, they can be built in the host country nationals by the international assignees and international assignees can build these skills in themselves as well and if the organization is able to manage the repatriation process, they can actually reap the benefits of these skills in a longer run and not lose the benefit if the employee quits very early after the repatriation. So, repatriation process is very much important and the multinationals reaction to this skill development process is part of the repatriation process and therefore we have discussed it under this particular topic.